


without inconvenience

by momentinsubtext



Category: Psych
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, the 4400 as a plot device
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 22:25:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5223272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/momentinsubtext/pseuds/momentinsubtext
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When April Skouris forces Shawn to tell the truth, the world maybe falls apart a little bit. And then maybe it gets better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	without inconvenience

**Author's Note:**

> Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better   
> ~Richard Hooker

There's a pretty brunette woman in the chief's office when Shawn and Gus arrive. She's wearing a nice dress, and her hair is pulled back, but she's obviously not used to dressing so formally. Shawn likes her instantly.

"Good, you're all here," Chief Vick says. "This is April Skouris. The FBI has graciously loaned her to us to help with the Bartlet case. Miss Skouris, you've already met Detectives Lassiter and O'hara. This is Shawn Spencer, our resident psychic, and his partner, Burton Guster."

Shawn waves. 

April looks nice enough. Harmless, and not at all like an FBI agent. Then she speaks; it's probably an innocent question, simple curiousity, the natural response to hearing the word psychic. It's also a mistake. 

"Psychic, huh?"

"There's no such thing as psychics," he says, caught instantly in her eyes. It isn't like he means to say it. It just comes out, like a compulsion. He leans forward conspiratorily, the whole world falling away until it's just him and her and the truth. "But you can't tell anyone, especially not Lassie."

"Why not?" she asks, sounding genuinely curious.

Multiple truths fight for the right to go free. 

_Because he already knows._

_Because he's the most likely to arrest me._

"Because then I wouldn't have an excuse to throw myself all over him," he says, because obviously the least appropriate truth is also the truest truth. Or something.

Jules makes a tiny, surprised noise.

They look toward the sound and just like that the world rushes back, the spell is broken. 

Shawn is suddenly aware that he was standing in the chiefs office, and he's just admitted to four years of lies. Jules looks hurt, Lassie looks a combination of smug and confused, and the chief -- well, he doesn't know what the chief looks like, but it probably doesn't mean anything good.

"What the _hell_ was that?"

"Miss Skouris is one of the 4400," Chief Vick says tightly. "She forces people to tell the truth."

"I don't like the word forces," April offers. "I prefer-"

"Tricks?" Shawn suggests. "That wasn't even fair. It was totally an ambush. I wouldn't even have come in here if I'd known-"

"That you'd be exposed as a fraud?"

He doesn't glare at Lassie. In fact, he doesn't look at any of them. "Humph," he says in a voice that approximates indignation. "I think I should run away now."

And he does. Right out of the chief's office and then out of the police station.

"Shawn!" Gus yells behind him. "Shawn, don't you dare leave me here to deal with this!"

 

Gus doesn't say "I told you so". He doesn't rant about all the ways they're screwed, or how they're going to go to jail forever. He probably wants to, but he doesn't. What he _does_  is watch Shawn mope around the Psych office for an hour, frowning at him like a mother hen. Eventually, he leaves Shawn to stare at the shadow of the word Psych on the wall, alone.

The knock on the door is unexpected, but not surprising. Shawn opens the door and steps aside to let Lassie in.

"I knew it would be you," he says, holding his hands out to be cuffed.

"Spencer-"

"What? You want my arms behind my back? It's not like I'm resisting, but okay." He turns around.

"I'm not here to arrest you."

"You're not?" He looks over his shoulder, then realizes that's ridiculous if he's not going to be cuffed and turns around again. "Now I'm dizzy. If you're not going to arrest me there's - actually, I have no idea what's in the fridge, but help yourself. Why are you here, then?"

Lassiter crosses his arms. "To talk."

"About what, how I'm totally fired? I get that, actually. You're not arresting me, which I guess makes sense because if you did all those bad guys we put away would go free, right? That sounds right." He holds up his hand in a scout salute. "I promise I won't come to the station and bug you ever again. I'm probably leaving Santa Barbara soon anyway, so don't worry."

"No," he says, and Shawn isn't sure which thing it's in response to.

"No?"

"You have 48 hours to provide your valid private investigators license. The chief has decided that you're 'too valuable a resource to lose due to unconventional presentation'. I presume you do _have_ a license laying around here somewhere. Or can get one," he adds under his breath.

Shawn's eyebrows go up in surprise. "Sure," he agrees.

"It's not my idea," Lassiter says hastily. "It's the chief's."

"Got it. If it was up to you I'd be in the deepest, darkest dungeon. Understood." He tilts his head curiously. "But that's not what you wanted to talk about. What was it, then?"

Lassiter glares. "You _know_ what."

"Do I? Are you sure? How would I know, Lassie, if you don't use words?"

_"Why?"_

It comes out as more of a growl than a word but Shawn understands it anyway, rocks back like it's going to knock him over.

"Oh. _That_." He steps into Lassie's space and leans up, just a bit, enough to brush his lips against the other man's. It's soft, chaste, and also unmistakable. "If you don't already know you're a worse detective than I thought," he murmurs, then steps back, away, and drops into the nearest beanbag chair. "I think you can find your own way out. I have a call to make."

He waits until he hears the door click shut before he dials the number Neal gave him. A phony PI license would be right up his ally, and he still owes Shawn a favour.

 

He brings the bogus PI license to Lassiter's place as soon as it arrives. He intends to just hand it over and go, but somehow he ends up standing in the detective's living room while Lassie looks over the forgery. It's a good job -- guaranteed to stand up under inspection -- and he doesn't really spend much time looking at it before he sets it aside.

"Satisfied?" Shawn asks, looking at the door.

Lassiter nods. "One question."

"Go for it."

"How did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Pull off the psychic bit for so long. You solved cases. You fooled everyone."

"Except you."

"Obviously."

"It's funny. I told you the truth the day we met and you called me a liar and threatened to throw me in jail."

"That isn't funny."

"No. It's not. Okay. I'll show you." His eyes dart around the room, taking in details one-two-three. He walks down the hallway, glancing briefly through open doors before coming back to where he started. He closes his eyes. "The bookshelf in the corner there doesn't match any of the rest of the furniture. Everything else is mahogany, but that one is a lighter wood. Oak, maybe maple. You're not interested in the books on it either, none of the spines are cracked. It doesn't look like you've dusted it since you moved in, but everything else is shipshape so you must be avoiding it on purpose. A gift, something your wife let you keep. Gifts you didn't even want in the first place, but she wouldn't let you get rid of because that's rude, and now that she's gone it's what you have. The photograph of your ex-wife hasn't been there as long, though, it's clean. By your bedside, most likely, moved when you started thinking about someone new. Recent, too, because the scratch where you started out flipping the frame down hasn't been refinished, but everything still smells lemony fresh from the last time you did it. All the suits in your closet are the same, not identical but near enough, except the third one in which hangs just a little bit different. Probably because you keep a gun hidden in the pocket. You only have half a set of towels in your bathroom, the His half of a set of His and Hers. She took the Hers half, if you still had them they'd be out, you don't have any problem keeping reminders of her. Who takes half a set of towels in a divorce? And you didn't bother replacing them. Well, you wouldn't need to, single guy living alone." He opens his eyes. "Now comes the fun part."

"What-?"

Hand to his forehead, suddenly looking more animated than he has in days, he bounces over to the bookshelf in question. "Bad juju! Bad juju, right here. Someone isn't happy." A fake gasp. "It's her! She's giving us the psychic stinkeye!" He grabs the photograph and spins around, staring at it. "The things you must have seen. Tell me, tell me what you saw." Then he's running down the halls, arms out in front of him like the picture is dragging him, Lassiter at his heels. He slams it down on the bedside table, dropping down to keep eye contact. "Oh, oh, I was wrong, she's not angry, she's sad. So sad. Dear lady, what makes you cry so?" He twitches back, standing up in the process. "To the left? To the left? Everything you own - no, wait, not _to the_  left, just left. Things that are left, left aside, left behind. Whoa!" He throws himself bodily at the door, stumbling back into the hallway and then into the bathroom, nearly toppling on the floor, the towel he grabs hold of the only thing keeping him upright. "Bread without butter, peanut butter without jelly, salt without pepper, His without Hers, oh! Oh, I can feel it now, all that sadness, emptiness, loneliness, but it's not coming from her." He pulls himself to his feet and grabs Lassiter by shoulders, shaking him. "It's coming from you. God, man, how can you stand that? The same thing day after day after day and no one to share it with." He steps back, clearing the bathroom and Lassiter's personal space in one movement. "That's how."

"That's... fairly impressive," he admits grudgingly.

Shawn shrugs. "Can I go now? I just wanted to drop my license off."

"That's it?"

"Sure. What else would there be?"

"You kissed me."

"I did. God, that was stupid, wasn't it? Thanks for not punching me."

He blinks. "You thought I'd punch you?"

"It's not an unreasonable assumption, given your obvious penchant for violence."

"And you did it anyway?"

He shrugs. "The world was already ending. And I've been throwing myself at you for years with no response, so-"

"You've been _what?_ "

"Throwing myself at you. For years. How did you not notice?"

"How was I supposed to know that's what you were doing when you were making eyes at O'hara and any other pretty girl who crossed your path?" he demands.

"Okay, first, I wasn't 'making eyes' at anyone, the two I have work just fine. And, second, _really?_ You're telling me I was too _subtle_ for you? Lassie. I once sat in your lap in the middle of the chief's office, how much more obvious did you need me to _be?_ "

Lassiter kisses him, in part to see if it will shut him up.

It does.

For a little while.

"I... didn't expect that," Shawn says when he pulls away. He licks his lips. "That's about the opposite of what I expected, actually, not that I'm not thrilled to be wrong in this case-"

"Spencer, shut up before I realize what a spectacularly bad idea this is."

"Oh! Now that I've kissed you and you've kissed me, can we do the one where we both participate?"

Lassiter doesn't bother dignify that with a response.

Not a verbal one, anyway.

 

Lassiter wakes up slowly, more aware of the dip in the bed than anything else. He opens his eyes and turns his head toward it to find Shawn propped up on one elbow, watching him.

"Good morning, sunshine."

"Morning," he says slowly, a little bit confused. He lets his brain run through the previous day. As he catches up, it suddenly occurs to him that if Shawn can read a room he can also read a face, and he has no idea what his is showing. Which must show, because Shawn laughs softly.

"Relax, Lassie, I'm not trying to read your mind, just admiring the view." He frowns. "Sorry, that probably didn't help. When do you have do you have to go to work?"

He checks the clock. "In an hour. Wait, you're not coming?"

"Nah, are you kidding? I _just_ gave you my PI license. I'll have Gus pick me up, come in around noon - well, two - and talk to the chief, see how many pieces are left to pick up. That April chick isn't going to be there, is she?"

He shakes his head. "She went back to the FBI."

"Thank god."

"Guster-" he starts, frowning.

"Gus already knows I'm here. He dropped me off last night. And I texted him, like, six times before you woke up." He shrugs at Lassiter's look. "I was bored and I didn't want you to think I'd just cut and run."

"That's... surprisingly considerate of you."

"And meaniepants comments like that will bring down your chances of getting a morning blowjob."

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this was part of a larger crossover world in which Neal from White Collar was a 4400 and Shawn helped to prove that he did not murder Elizabeth Burke. That kinda comes up in passing, but that fic never got written. Maybe someday.


End file.
